“To recap: A few years ago, the General Assembly ordered that class sizes in grades K through 3 be reduced. Not a bad idea.

But the Honorables provided no funding. That means school districts have to scrimp, save and work it out for themselves, with local money.

In New Hanover County, the school system is going to have to hire up to 48 new elementary teachers — and come up with classrooms for them.

Brunswick is adding 32 teachers, setting up trailers and turning computer labs into classrooms. Much of this will be accomplished either by increasing county taxes or by robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Peter, in this case, would be students in grades four and up. Their class sizes are likely to swell, and word has it that many schools will be losing music, art, physical education and technology teachers.

The legislature needs to fix the mess they made, and since the class-size rules take effect in August, it would be nice if they could muster a bit of urgency.”

After noting that the Senate is in no hurry to address the issue, the editorial concludes:

“Of course, this is the same crowd of Republicans who assembled in a matter of days after the Charlotte’s city council passed a non-discrimination ordinance. In a special one-day session, the General Assembly passed the infamous — and completely unenforceable — HB-2, the ‘potty police’ law.

That, apparently, rose to the level of an urgent problem. The welfare of our schoolchildren and stability of our school systems? Not so much….

We wonder how they feel about the Senate’s delay in addressing a problem it helped create? A mess, by the way, that could have — and should have — been cleaned up months ago.